The use of solar energy as a readily available source for energy in general and in particular for the generation of electrical power has now been long established.
Harvesting solar energy in large volumes is done commercially and is increasingly becoming a viable alternative for clean energy. Typically a circuit for harvesting energy is comprised of the solar power cells, such as photovoltaic (PV) cells, a switch voltage regulator, a battery for storing energy, and an appropriate interface for providing energy to the load.
In the related art, various circuits have been proposed for such harvesting solutions and all are concerned with the continuous supply of energy, ranging from the source of energy, to the load, and storing of the excess energy in a battery. The switch voltage regulator typically includes the like of an inductor, a regulator (e.g., a voltage regulator) and capacitors as the case may be. When multiple sources of energy and or batteries are used, multiple regulators are required.
The harvesting solutions discussed in the related art operate well in systems that require a supply of high energy. However, such solutions are deficient when there is a need to supply relatively small amounts of energy to one or more loads from one or more energy sources.
It would be therefore advantageous to overcome such deficiencies by providing a compact solution that preferably is implementable on an integrated circuit (IC). It would be further preferable to reduce the need for multiple internal regulators and relatively large external components such as the inductor.